


Going on Seventeen

by theswearingkind



Category: Brokeback Mountain (2005)
Genre: M/M, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-27
Updated: 2013-10-27
Packaged: 2017-12-28 21:32:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,168
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/996935
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theswearingkind/pseuds/theswearingkind
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Not-quite-seventeen is a difficult age to be.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Going on Seventeen

**Author's Note:**

> This story was written for the Brokeback ficathon, for this prompt: "When he was sixteen, something happened to him that he hasn't shared with anyone--until now. It took him three years to get over it before meeting 'him' on Brokeback but late at night he still has nightmares about it."
> 
> This fic involves dubious consent in a sexual encounter between an adult and a minor, as well as instances of homophobic language. Please don't read if you may find that triggering.
> 
> Originally posted to brokebackslash in 2006.

“K.E., you ol’ sonuvabitch, get your lazy ass in here right now!”

Ennis keeps his head down, following close behind his brother into the cramped, hot office. Big boss-man, buttons straining to hold over a mountain of stomach, surveys them both from behind a high wooden desk strewn with papers, chomping on an unlit cigar with yellowed teeth. His eyes flicker over Ennis, take in the rough, skinny length of sixteen, the firm set in the jaw.

“Not much to ‘im, is there?” the boss-man says finally. “You brung me a sissy-boy, Del Mar?”

“Naw, sir, he ain’t much to look on, I’ll grant you that, but he a real good worker. Been workin’ on ranches all ‘is life. Got a fuckin’ spooky way with horses.” K.E. turns to Ennis, claps him genially on the back. “Ain’t that right, boy?”

Ennis nods, digging his hands farther into his pockets, fingers clenched tight.

“What’s your name, boy?” the boss-man asks, though K.E. told him yesterday.

It takes him a minute to work up his voice. “Ennis, sir,” he says back.

“What fool kind of name’s Ennis?” But he doesn’t expect an answer.

“Well, Mr. De Beers, you reckon he’ll do?”

Boss-man gives him another glance. “Hell, I don’t give a shit, Del Mar. You say he’ll do, he’ll do. But he’s your watch, you got that? One toe outta line an’ it’s your ass’ll pay for it.”

“Yessir.”

“He can start workin’ tomorrow. Today just show ‘im ‘round the place, let ‘im get the feel for it, so he’ll be ready to go tomorrow.”

“Yessir,” K.E. says again, then they leave, Ennis one step behind.

The work doesn’t look hard, just long, and Ennis passes the day mostly watching. Sure enough, the horses take to him like a drowning man to dry land, and by the end of the day the other workers treat him like he’s been there forever, a part of the stables and hay. They’re hard men, storm-worn, rough as sandpaper, but with no real malice to them, and when Yancy wants to go out drinking that night, he takes K.E. and Ennis along.

“Ennis here gonna be seventeen tomorrow,” K.E. announces. “An’ he ‘bout to be workin’ with us, ‘mongst men. I reckon it’s time he started drinkin’ like a man.”

Yancy grins, cracked lips revealing brown teeth. “You damn right, the boy deserves a drink for ‘is birthday.” He claps a strong hand on Ennis’s back. “What’ll you have, son? Start you with beer—or somethin’ stronger?”

Ennis flushes red, glad of the dark of the bar. “Beer, sir.”

“Sir?” K.E. laughs. “Boy, you best not be callin’ ol’ Yancy here ‘sir’ no more—he’s likely to get a big head. An’ he cain’t afford to make it no bigger. Ugly enough as it is.”

The first round comes. Ennis shrinks into the corner of the booth as best he can, nursing his drink, knowing K.E.’s hospitality extends to a birthday toast and no farther. He listens to the other men talking, making jokes he doesn’t understand so well, though he gets the main jist of it. Yancy tries to get him started on the boss’s daughter—“She your age, boy, an’ a mighty fine lil’ piece, if I do say so m’self. Wouldn’t mind seein’ up that one’s dress, no sir, I surely would not!”—but he just draws back further, fists clenching, digging his ragged, bitten nails into his palms.

Two more rounds come and go, and Yancy is stumbling through a story. “S’then I said—s’then I said, you just get on back into the house, M’reen, I’m handlin’ this, an’ she said—”

“She said, like hell I will, you ol’ bastard,” a new voice cuts in, and Ennis looks up to see a tall man about K.E.’s age standing over them, grinning wide. “You done told that story fifteen times.”

“Bates, you sonuvabitch, where the hell was you today?”

“H’lo to you too, Yancy. Had me some business needed takin’ care of. Hey, K.E.”

“H’lo,” K.E. says, acknowledging him with a tip of his beer bottle.

“Who’s this, then?” asks Bates, nodding towards Ennis, dark eyes studying him. Ennis almost squirms in his seat, not able to meet the other man’s gaze.

“S’my brother,” K.E. announces drunkenly. “This here’s Ennis.”

“Ennis, huh? K.E. told me ‘bout you—said you was good with horses?” Ennis gives the faintest hint of a nod, barely moving his eyes from his empty beer bottle. “Well, nice to meet you, Ennis. Now move your damn ass over, Yancy, an’ lemme sit down. Been on my feet all day.”

Yancy moves grudgingly, letting Bates settle beside him. “Wouldn’t know it, since you didn’t show up for work. De Beers was piss-mad.”

Bates laughs, flashing white teeth like needles in the dark of the bar. “Don’t need his fuckin’ place nohow. Got me a new job, sellin’ horses for my cousin over in Colorado. Good money, an’ I don’t gotta work but two or three days a week.”

“What’s wrong with workin’ for De Beers? He ain’t so bad, as bosses go.”

Bates stretches, propping his feet on the booth next to Ennis, silver spurs gleaming. “Ain’t him, K.E. He ain’t nothin’—talks mean, but he’s alright underneath. ‘Tween you an’ me, though, that place ain’t gonna make it.”

“What you mean?”

“Got me a look at his books, Yancy. The place is goin’ down—got a year left, maybe a year an’ a half ‘fore it folds. He ain’t makin’ enough to run it right, an’ the place is near triple-mortgaged. I’m surprised it’s lasted as long as it has.”

“You serious?”

Bates nods, draining a beer. “If I was you, fellas, I’d be keepin’ an eye out for somethin’ else.”

The booth falls silent, the quiet hanging like fog. “Well, shit,” Yancy says finally. “You done spoilt the mood, Bates. Cain’t even be proper drunk now.”

“Sorry ‘bout that, friend.”

“Aw, it don’t matter. Best be headin’ home anyhow. Maureen’ll be gettin’ mad any minute now.” Bates lets him out of the booth, and he stands, more steadily than two shots of Jack would let on. “You have you a fine birthday eve, Ennis, an’ I’ll see you at work t’morrow.”

Bates turns to Ennis, interested. “Your birthday tomorrow? How old you gonna be?”

“He’ll be seventeen,” K.E. cuts in. “Hey, Bates, you movin’ to Colorado?”

“Yeah,” he replies, still watching Ennis.

“If there’re any other jobs over there, you lemme know, you got that?”

“Will do.”

K.E. slaps Bates on the back. “You a good man, Bates, real good man.”

“I thank you kindly, K.E. You a real good drunk.”

K.E. laughs, too loud. “I ain’t drunk.”

“Either you drunk or you want somethin’, an’ either way it ain’t gonna be to my advantage.”

“Do me a favor, friend—take Ennis home for me, alright?”

“You got other plans?”

“I sure do.”

Bates grins. “An’ do they involve a pretty little redhead sittin’ at the other end of that bar?”

“Yes they do. You a smart man, too.”

“You got a problem with me takin’ you home, boy?” Ennis shakes his head, doesn’t look up. “Well then, K.E., you go do what you need to do.” He slides his gaze back to Ennis, and there’s that something in it again that makes Ennis feel like running out the door. “I reckon me an’ Ennis’ll get along just fine without you.”

It’s not five minutes before K.E. has the girl out the door, looking back over his shoulder with a great big shit-eater grin on his face.

“Well, Ennis. Seventeen tomorrow, huh?”

“Yeah.”

“That d’serves more than one beer.” He flags a waitress and has two more beers brought to the booth, raising one in a toast. “To birthdays.”

“Thanks,” Ennis mumbles.

Bates leans back, free and easy. “You’re welcome. Hell, you only turn seventeen once, right? Might as well enjoy it.” He finishes his beer, swallowing it all in one long gulp, throat muscles working under his tan skin. “You want another one?”

“Ain’t finished this one yet.”

“So go ahead an’ finish it off, an’ I’ll have you another one waitin’.” And he’s true to his word, through the second beer and the third and the fourth. Ennis has never had more than one or two beers in his life, and never so fast, one right after the other, and it’s making him light-headed and dizzy, like when he was little and would spin around the kitchen table until he fell.

“You want another one?” Bates asks, finally, when the table is littered with empty bottles and smoking cigarette butts.

“Naw,” he says, slow. “I think—I think I’ve had enough for now.”

“You ready to go, then?”

Ennis nods. “Yeah. I—I gotta go to work in the mornin’.”

“Well come on, then. Let’s get you outside.” He does not say, let’s get you home.

They stumble through the door, Ennis leaning heavy on Bates, arm around his shoulder to keep from falling. The night is black as pitch, and cold. Ennis doesn’t feel it. He’s warm all over, skin burning up from the inside out.

Bates steers him away from the bar, out into the darkness, and even as drunk as he is, that doesn’t seem right. “What you park way out here for?”

“Huh? Oh—uh, there weren’t no room in the parking lot.”

“Oh.” That’s odd. Ennis could have sworn the bar was almost empty all night.

“Your brother treat you good, Ennis?”

Ennis swerves his head, tries to look at the other man, but he’s too close and everything is fuzzy. “What you mean?”

“He good to you?”

“I guess.” He shrugs away from Bates. “I need to—I gotta sit down.” He drops to the ground, falling on his back and looking up at the sky. The moon shines down in a thin sliver against the blackness, giving just enough light that he can see Bates in silhouette beside him.

“Seventeen, huh.”

“Yeah,” he breathes.

“S’a damn fine age.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Lemme give you some advice, Ennis. You listenin’?”

Ennis looks at him, and that thing is there again, making him want to run, but his feet are leaden. “Yeah?”

Bates puts his hand on Ennis’s arm. “You listenin’?” he repeatsa

“Yeah.”

“Don’t you get into this ranch-hand bullshit now, Ennis. You d’serve better than that.” He moves his hand to Ennis’s shoulder, leaving a trail of fire behind him. “You hear me? You a good boy.” And it might just be the beer, but Ennis could swear that Bates’s hand is actually rubbing him now, actually moving over his shirt in tiny little circles, and that something is still there but he doesn’t want to run anymore, doesn’t want to do anything except press into that hand a little harder, have it press back.

“You hear me, Ennis. You—you a good boy.” Bates is watching him, those eyes of his sparking fires in Ennis’s belly, his hand sliding along Ennis’s collar, fingers slipping inside and touching skin hot as coals, and talking the whole time, the words not matching the hands. “You oughta be doin’ somethin’ that’ll let you make somethin’ of your self. You too good for this shit, Ennis.”

It’s hard to think with those hands on his skin, let alone speak, but Ennis manages. “You don’t know nothin’ ‘bout me.”

Bates leans over him, blocking out the moon, and it’s dark, so dark, and he can’t see at all, even a little bit, and all he can feel are those hands on his chest, touching him like he’s made of glass, and then he can feel the other man’s breath on his face, stirring against his skin. There’s a long pause, and he can almost feel Bates’s eyes watching him, and then he hears, “Yeah. I do.”

And Bates kisses him, kisses not-quite-seventeen-year-old Ennis, and his skin catches fire, like electricity shooting through his veins, and it’s wet and dark and hot and the twist in the pit of his stomach isn’t from beer, isn’t from anything he can name or say, and he can feel his cock start to get hard, and that’s when it hits him.

He shoves Bates away and leaps to his feet, head swimming and breathing hard, telling himself it’s because he’s disgusted. “You—you fuckin’ faggot,” he spits out, the words hard to say, thick across his tongue as he wipes his mouth hard with the back of his hand. “You stay the fuck away from me, or I’ll—I’ll tell everybody you’re a goddamn fag.”

Ennis finally runs.

He hitches a ride home. That night, he can’t sleep for dreaming of callused hands on his skin and face and cock.

He makes up his mind, and smiles at the boss’s daughter the next day.


End file.
